


The World In Bloom

by nyctanthes



Series: Prompt Ficlets [10]
Category: Riddle-Master Trilogy - Patricia A. McKillip
Genre: 3 Sentence Ficathon, Gen, Political Philosophy, Sibling Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:00:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29180661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyctanthes/pseuds/nyctanthes
Summary: She's older than her big brother now.
Relationships: Morgon of Hed & Tristan of Hed
Series: Prompt Ficlets [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1249265
Kudos: 1





	The World In Bloom

For years and years, after her mission to rescue Morgon is cut short, after she is sent back to Hed like the child she is, she keeps her feet on land: Ships don't suit her, and she never learns to fly. She thinks the lesson she's been taught is, "Stay home, little, unmagical girl, and leave the work of saving the world to those who are destined." There are, after all, endless tunics to be patched; endless meals to be hunted and gathered, cleaned and cooked; endless hearths and pots, dishes and cups to be scrubbed and, mere hours later, scrubbed again. It is right, she tells herself, that she contribute in the ways she knows best, is most skilled at.

The years pass and she becomes older, much older than Morgon was, when he left on his quest to unravel the mystery of his three stars. (She becomes older than he _is_. His face has aged while his time has slowed, her years to his minutes.) And somehow, almost against her will, she learns more. She learns better. No matter how deep the well from which their inscrutable powers are drawn, no man nor woman can successfully rule a land and its people unless they understand the hearth, the sty and the stables, the ancients who drowse in the sun and the children who frolic in the streets. 

To be a land ruler is to know as intimately as one's own breath the rustle of every leaf on each branch on every tree, the restless movement of sand dunes, the plip plop of water in caves vaster than a starless, moonless night. But the innermost desires of those who sit under them (walk across them, venture into them) will remain a mystery, without curiosity and conversation. Without connection.

Her home is a peaceful place and Eliard not unwilling to be taught by her. (In the end, he is not that different from her; he is a quicker study than he appears.) Providing her with ample opportunity to venture into the world again, on her own terms this time, using ships when she chooses though they will never suit her; to talk and listen, share her knowledge if the land rulers are willing to hear her out. (Not all of them are.) 

At the end of a day of counselling in her fashion - part tact, part impetuousness, more than a portion of directness, a great deal of caring; she is emotional and unafraid to be so - she might drowse under a mighty tree she can practically see the top of, three Tristans could barely span its trunk with their outstretched, braceleted arms. She might sit quiet in the dry grass, watchful as a rabbit while a hawk drifts in lazy circles; makes a decision and banks, floats to earth to cool its summer sticky feathers in the silver bellied river. 

She might ride with the vesta across plains of milky blue snow, past fast frozen lakes, under constellations that pulse purple, then green then orange, as if she can see their hearts beating. Sit in forest clearings and mountains, in great halls and, just once, the homely hall of her beloved Hed with a man and a woman with faces like concepts - Time and Nature and Being. Listen to harping that makes her simultaneously laugh and weep. 

Without being asked she might speak, might share what she's learned, free of destiny and the achingly slow movements of trunk and water and stone. In case he who measures existence in centuries, millennia rather than decades forgets: What it is to be human.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2021 3 Sentence Ficathon in response to the prompt: Riddle-Master of Hed, Tristan: She's older than her big brother now.


End file.
